The Girl Who Chases the Wind

Chapter 4: Dreamscape

Not that I expected a clearer answer than what Lily gave me. Plus, he was my host, so I didn’t want to push him so much I got lumped in with those reporters he cited from before. I had to wonder what they were looking for then and which questions pushed his buttons. No snooping for it beyond what my books might offer though. I was outside the 6G halo. Though I suspected the ranch was connected through satellite or other sources, I wasn’t going to use that because I knew it would be very easy to figure out what I accessed on a private line.

I was on my own. And, despite the chicken sandwich, I was starting to feel tired. Blame my weird sleep cycle. Taking jobs whenever I could according to the endless news grind. Putting together information people could look up for themselves but were too lazy to. Much of the work could be done by bots which synthesized the primary content of several sources and even wrote most articles. But a human still needed to proof a bot for serious work and most sounded too much like bots to hold readers. And they couldn’t do interviews. Glad for that.

After lunch, I roamed a bit. Little quiet areas made the ranch feel like less of a clinic and more like an extravagant home. I didn’t get the sense of a high-profile, celebrity rehab place. Most of the ranch was conservatively decorated with a focus on the functional. I did a long walk with my camera down an empty hallway leading to the quiet area. It was a pretty sequence but probably not interesting enough for my article patron.

I passed offices for those who ran the ranch aside from Feldon. I saved their names for future reference. I paused at patient doors but didn’t go in. I found a physical therapy area with a mixture of games, rigorous equipment, and a pathway leading to the outdoor facilities I’d seen earlier. I thought I caught a glimpse of green, but I couldn’t be sure.

Large sections of the facility were inaccessible due to security card systems. Frustrating.

When I’d had my fill of snooping around for secrets and it was time to resume the tour, I went where Dr. Feldon told me to meet him. He was taking calls in what I assumed to be his office. It was quaint with nice furniture and a very lovely view of the transplanted forest he’d mentioned before which I hadn’t seen from the parking lot. It was a sharp spill of green over what was otherwise brown. Without saying anything, I snapped what I anticipated was a flattering picture of Feldon finishing his call. Might be useful.

Once he was done, he offered some small talk about lunch and how I liked the food at the ranch. I framed my little tale like so, “Never much for institutional food places but it’s one of the better ones. Plenty of choices. Met some fascinating people too.”

I left it there, suspecting that Feldon’s curious nature would lead him to ask for me.

He took it, inquiring, “Ahh…who did you meet?”

It took me a moment to consider how I wanted to phrase my answer. Appropriate for the encounter I was about to describe. I couldn’t act too naïve or too interested.

Sitting in the chair opposite Feldon, I kept my eyes near his for shifts in his demeanor and told him, “Well, one of them I’d seen earlier and I wasn’t able to get her name either time. The other one just called herself ‘Lily’. Sweet young lady with shocking red hair and an eager appetite for cake.”

My first move and it was Feldon’s turn. I noticed a light scrunching around his eyes, not quite a frown but the twitch of one before he caught it. He also offered a smile that lingered on his face. Nothing definitive there, but I already had the sense I’d touched upon people he knew.

He confirmed that he did indeed know them, simple as that, but then elaborated, “You probably won’t get the other’s name. She’s quite private about herself.”

I unfurled the next bit, “I understand. You mentioned doctor-patient confidentiality with some of your cases and I respect that.” I wanted to sneak in a question about their hair or conditions, but I resolved to work slowly. I even squinted a bit at my notes to add some authenticity.

“Yes, I did mention that but even confirming or denying they are current patients is something I am not able to do under that. But in general, you will run into a lot of people who are actual patients here, just having lunch.” He then went on to distinguish the attire of medical professionals at the ranch by department and specialty. Blue lab coats seemed the key unifying aspect.

That was confirmation enough for me that they were something like patients. I wanted to press, but I had to step carefully.

I dipped my head and told him, “Now I’m even more curious and I wouldn’t be doing due diligence to my readers if I didn’t ask if those two are connected to something more experimental than what you’ve shown me so far….I mean at least why they chose to dye their hair such striking colors. Has to be a story there.”

Feldon clenched his neck. Oh, I may have overdone it with that last bit. I braced myself no matter what.

He clasped his hands together and intoned, “What I can say about those you met is limited. I apologize for that and I hope you respect that as I respect their privacy…as any good doctor or person would. As for their appearance, you’d have to ask them.”

Stonewalled at all points. I’d have to concede this conflict. I made a scribble note on my pad and then returned to, “Understood. As for the rest of today’s tour, I’m ready whenever you are. You mentioned a coma patient and some other surprises?”

Dr. Feldon gave a lengthy, intimidating pause before he pressed his hands on his desk and answered, “Of course. Also, if they’re not too busy today, I’d love to introduce you to someone who does all my worrying for me on a regular basis. And no, not my lawyer or anyone quite like that.”

I had to admit my snap reaction was to imagine a malpractice lawyer. I was vaguely-intrigued but mostly discouraged by Lily and Greenie. But I put on a pleasant face and let Dr. Feldon take me to the first patient in a room past the bend of a long hallway.

The room itself was impressive, a good deal larger than the ones I’d seen so far. It seemed more like a small apartment than a patient room. In the back of the main room, not far from a blind-covered window with geometries of light shining through, I was introduced to Edgar.

Sprawled on a contoured bed, Edgar’s limbs appeared rigid and at points clenched in painful positions. It reminded me more of ALS or Huntington’s disease than a simple coma. I hoped the doctor wasn’t dumbing it down for me. Edgar’s eyes only cracked open slightly. He seemed to be swallowing and breathing on his own without special equipment. His face, a little scruffy with dark hair like the close-cropped fuzz on his head, had a lean curve like a stretched mask. It was hard to tell if he was trying to smile or scowl.

Dr. Feldon called out, “Hello, Edgar! I hope this is a good time. I have a guest.”

I narrowed an eyebrow. Couldn’t be a coma patient. It wasn’t till it turned on that I noticed the printed material screen spread across the far wall. At first, everything was blurry. I figured it was either a defect in the projection or it was just warming up.

With a clenched smile, Dr. Feldon informed me, “Edgar’s mind can be a bit dirty, especially in dreams. So, the computer blurs the naughty bits.” I tried not to blush.

Soon, a grass landscape materialized, sharp and clear as any picture. Only the edges seemed to move and flow like a painting on a light dose of LSD. The image seemed so vivid and real and yet it looked like a doctored visual effect at the same time.

I had no idea what to make of it before Dr. Feldon explained, “You are seeing what is inside Edgar’s brain.” Soon, the landscape shifted to a studio apartment in a skyscraper. Some of the details resembled the room we were standing in, but it was far more extravagant. Some colors and appliances changed at random.

Before long, a man emerged from around a corner in a maroon suit with a flashy yellow tie. It was Edgar, though he was clean-shaven, taller, and accompanied by a woman in a deep brown professional outfit. Her hair, short and combed, looked stark white in a tone sharper than platinum blond. She was lovely.

“Dr. Feldon! Hey there! Who’s your guest?” The voice was simulated but with easy emotional shifts that made it sound surprisingly natural.

Folding his hands behind him, Dr. Feldon moved so he could turn and talk to both the bedridden Edgar and the one projected onto the screen. He gestured to me and explained, “A reporter, who is perhaps a bit too nosy at times, but certainly not the scum of the Earth like some I have met.”

I offered up my name and the projected Edgar snapped a finger and cracked a grin as he announced, “I’ve heard of you. Read a bit of your work here and there. But then I read everything….all the time. Keeps me from getting bored and I do get bored. Tell him, Ada.”

‘Ada’ stated, “He gets bored.” Edgar reiterated, “That I do, though I try my best against boredom. Like so.”

Virtual Edgar spun in place and unleashed a vast, science-fictional landscape with more detail than any digital matte painting or visual effect I’d ever seen. I snapped a picture because I knew I’d never be able to describe it properly. But it appeared alien, industrial, hopeful, alive, and surreal all at the same time. Even more than that, it changed from moment to moment, a true window into another world.

Gesturing outwards, Edgar and Ada flew through the world and the projection followed him with details only blurring at the edges. It felt like I was watching a recorded dream minus all the confusion and intrusion of the conscious mind to structure and interpret. Only it had all the clarity and lucidity as though some film artist had toiled to make it.

While I watched, Dr. Feldon whispered to me about the details. Edgar was indeed comatose, but he also had a degenerative condition whose name I didn’t recognize but saved for later research. This combination was the challenge that Dr. Feldon’s efforts had not yet overcome.

Watching the screen as the industrial areas became a grassland with all the colors wrong and trees which never existed, I asked, “Even Memetic Crystalline can’t repair the nerves?”

Dr. Feldon sighed and softly offered, “It can do so much but human hands must guide it. Edgar’s mind is amazing, it’s beautiful. Yet his family essentially abandoned him to us. They see a broken shell, lost and worthless. Why can’t he get up? Why does he need constant care? We healed the parts which we knew how to heal but his conditions let us only go so far. If we went further, then we would be unraveling the very essence of Edgar. He would no longer exist.”

I drew my lip in and had no words to fill the moment as I watched Edgar and Ada dive and swoop along a floating city of jeweled fortresses wrapped in mists.

With a sound between a cough and chuckle, Dr. Feldon mentioned, “He’s happier and more voracious and active than I could ever imagine being. I wanted to explore the idea of a synthetic body which the Memetic Crystalline in his brain could take for a walk but he loathed the limitation.”

Ada remarked, with a mid-air turn, her hair twisting around her head, “Why limit yourself to a single body when all of imagination can be your dwelling.” She had a point. And I made a note about synthetic bodies.

I soon learned that Ada and Edgar existed not only as assistant and avatar but as two sides of Edgar’s psyche. He quipped, “Aren’t I a gorgeous lady deep inside?” Ada poked him in the shoulder for that. I smiled to myself.

Edgar provided the visuals to outclass any supposed ‘blockbuster’ film (though such things were becoming as antiquated as that newsroom in my head) and enough implications for a full-length interview of his own. His home life growing up, as he showed me briefly with stylized coloration, had me curious for more. His family appeared as figments and phantasms.

Time flew with Edgar as there was so much to see. I was beginning to balance making eye contact with his body while still trying to catch the subtleties of his ideal forms. Before long, we had to move on but we departed with promises that I would stop by tomorrow for a longer session.

Even after exiting the room, my mind was full of islands on the high seas and dancing rows of sunflowers in a living painting as impossible shorelines crept by with the slow admiration of a stroll. Absent from my thoughts were the cake-lover and the sprinter.

Dr. Feldon chuckled to himself and noted, “I knew you’d enjoy him. Like a living dream. A human mind laid bare. Well, part of it.”